A former member of the England Taekwondo team has failed in his bid to overturn a 32-month jail term for inciting a 13-year-old girl to perform a sex act while he watched on Snapchat.

Joshua Wadey, who represented his country in international championships and was a former junior world champion in the martial art, was sentenced in May after pleading guilty to causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and causing a child to watch a sexual act.

The 21-year-old former captain of the Surrey County Taekwondo team, who was expected to win a first class degree in economics from the University of Surrey, exchanged a series of sexual videos and pictures with the girl using Snapchat in August 2015, when he was 19.

Wadey, of Green Lane in White Bushes, argued that his sentence was too harsh and took his case to the Courts of Appeal on Monday (October 2).

Read More

Latest court headlines

Justice William Davis, sitting with Mr Justice Green, heard that Wadey had sent the girl a video of him pleasuring himself. The court heard that he also encouraged her, during a 90-minute exchange of messages, to make a video of herself performing a sex act with a hairbrush.

The police raided his home after the girl's mother saw suspicious messages from him on her phone.

Wadey's lawyers argued that his "stupid and naive behaviour" ought not to have led to such a long sentence.

They pointed to his "exceptional personal mitigation" and sporting and academic achievements.

They said he had become accustomed to looking at porn and that "led him to believe this was a normal way to act - which of course is not right."

He had "forfeited his chance of performing for his country", the judges were told.

And he had since "displayed incredible remorse," voluntarily seeking psycho-sexual counselling.

Wadey's lawyers told the court that he ought to have escaped jail and been given a suspended term.

But Mr Justice Davis said he had used "grooming behaviour" to "cajole" the underage girl into performing a sex act on camera.

"The judge could have considered a community sentence, but this was a very young girl who obviously suffered significant harm, he said.

"The judge had a difficult balance to reach between the needs of Wadey and the victim. It undoubtedly was a sentence which was severe, but we cannot say it was wrong in principle or manifestly excessive."